There are tons of different cookies that we make, but these three are the most common cookies that most Czech families bake around Christmas.

I used a recipe from Czech Vegan Society for the vanilla-nut cookies that are shaped like the letter C. I used walnuts instead of hazelnuts, but you can use whatever nuts you want, even almonds work very well in this recipe.

For the gingerbread cookies I found an inspiration onMattie's Vegan Baking website. I used his Gingerbread Cookie Buddies recipe that I modified. I substituted half brown sugar and half cane sugar for the turbinado sugar. I used extra molasses instead of the barley malt, and I had to add some almond milk because the dough was too dry and did not stick together. I used mini gingerbread man cookie cutter and wild forrest animals cookies cutters. For the icing I used powdered sugar and lemon juice.

I also used my own spices. The traditional Czech gingerbread spices are cinnamon, coriander, star anise, allspice, cloves, anise, nutmeg, fennel and sometimes ginger. I added ginger to the mixture, too.

The recipe for Linzer Cookies was my own and I am going to put it in my upcoming cookbook. I used seedless raspberry jam and red currant jam for the filling.

All of these cookies taste the best after a few days, not fresh out of the oven. They get softer and more flavorful.

I spent the whole afternoon baking and decorating these cookies, and cleaning up the huge mess. I realized something today, I am a terrible gingerbread cookie decorator! After several very ugly cookies I decided to leave the rest of the cookies "naked".

6 comments:

Love this amazing array of cookies Elisabeth! I had my first Linzer cookie a few days ago (I know, it's about time right?) and I completely forgot about how awesome those vanilla nut cookies are, especially around the Holidays. Decorating gingerbread cookies is so hard! After making mine I now have a new appreciation for it due to my poor skills;) Nice work!

Lovely! Looks like Christmas in the Czech Republic is similar to Christmas here in Germany, at least when it comes to cookies. :) The Vanilla-Nut cookies are called Vanillekipferl here, yum! You've inspired me to do some last minute baking today, our house has been surprisingly cookie-less this season - time to change that.

Hey! I'm an American vegan living in the Czech Republic! So excited to find your blog. Other things weren't so difficult but I was having trouble with the Massively loaded with butter Christmas cookies. So I'll try these tomorrow. Really looking forward to WOW my Czech boyfriend's family, well, they've been baking these for decades, so... at least I'd like a, "so there's no butter or eggs in these?" Thank You!

@ Anonymus I am glad you found my blog :-) The vanilla rolls (half moons) taste best when you let them sit in a container with a lid on for two weeks before eating (or at least a week). If you need any help or new vegan friends, my friends at Czech Vegan Society and Vegan Fighter are in Prague

About Me

I am a Czech Vegan living in America. I am working on my first vegan cookbook. On this blog I share my recipes, my thoughts on vegan living, vegan products reviews and other fun things. Two of my recipes were published in the Vegetarian Times magazine, as winning recipes in their recipe contests (November/December 2010 issue and September 2012 issue) and another recipe was published by Eating Well in the cookbook EatingWell Fast & Flavorful Meatless Meals: 150 Healthy Recipes Everyone Will Love (2011), and Eating Well magazine (August 2012 issue).
I love cooking and baking, running, and I enjoy veganizing Czech and American recipes. I am an animal rescuer, chocoholic and a tea lover.
I would like to mention that some of the products that I talk about on my blog were generously given to me with no obligation to write a positive review. If you make vegan products and want them to be featured and reviewed on my blog, let me know. You can email me at czechvegan (at) yahoo.com. My old email address czech.vegan (at) yahoo.com was compromised so I can no longer access it.